Geology of the Wellington district : a brief explanation of the geological map Sheet 311 Wellington

This Sheet Explanation provides a summary of the geology of the Wellington district, the area covered by 1:50 000 scale geological Sheet 311 (England and Wales). It also provides directions to further geological information about the district. The district includes parts of the counties of Somerset and Devon, within the local authority districts of Taunton Deane, South Somerset, Mid Devon and East Devon. The principal centres of population are the towns of Wellington and Chard, the southern outskirts of Taunton in the north and the western part of Ilminster in the east. Much of the district is occupied by the northern and central parts of the Blackdown Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), which was designated in 1991. The topography of the district is dominated by the Blackdown Hills (front cover), a dissected plateau that rises steeply to a maximum elevation of 315 m above Ordnance Datum south of the gently undulating Vale of Taunton Deane. In the northwest the ground rises to around 160 m. North and east of the Blackdown Hills complex, rivers such as the Isle and Tone flow north-westwards and west towards the Bristol Channel. Within the south of the Blackdown Hills, the rivers Culm, Axe, Otter and Yarty drain southwards towards the English Channel (Figure 1).